Slovenian GirlSP-2010

Slovenka

Alexandra, a twenty-three-year-old Slovenian, leads a double life: she is a respectable student and a call girl. When one of her clients, a German MEP, has a heart attack, Alexandra is in danger of having to give up her secret. With a powerful leading role by Nina Ivanisin as the cool anti-heroine.

The eighth feature by the Slovenian director Damjan Kozole (well known for Spare Parts, 2003) is set in Ljubljana in 2008, when Slovenia was chair of the European Union for six months. Against that background, we follow the 23-year-old student Alexandra, who works as a call girl using the name Slovenka and mainly focuses on foreign guests who don't stay in the city for long. Things go wrong when a customer has a heart attack after taking too much Viagra; he turns out to be a member of the European Parliament. The police go looking for the girl, who is determined to keep her double life a secret. Powerful leading role by theatre actress Nina Ivanisin as the cool, calculating anti-heroine.

PROGRAMMER NOTESDamjan Kozole and producer Danijel Hocevar are both strong and important names within the Slovenian film industry, consistently following their path and producing high quality arthouse films and each time (in their own words), they have to start from scratch. Director Kozole builds up a chronicle of the changes in the region he lives in and their impact on the psyche of ordinary men. In 2008, we had the chance to see Forever in Rotterdam: his intimate drama of one Slovenian couple (but with universal values). His directing skills and excellent work with actors show again in his latest film Slovenka, a case of one Eastern European girl who, sadly, symbolises not only this tiny country and the impact of cruel capitalism on people's lives here but the whole ex-communist region. As Mike Goodridge of Screen Daily put it: 'It is a clever metaphor for the dubious values of capitalism and personal gain that have spread fast through the new Europe.'